CHAPTER IV. THE ENTERTAINING GROUP
Tale of Probable Adventure
Tales of Daring and Danger, by G. A. Henty; F. H. Spearman's Held for Orders; Tales of Railroad Life (McClure), Nerve of Foley and other Railroad Stories (Harpers); Cy Warman's The Last Spike and Other Railroad Stories and The Express Messenger (Scribners); Stewart Edward White's Blazed Trail Stories and Stories of the Wild Life (Doubleday). Many of R. L. Stevenson's tales.
The Society Story
This is the type of the larger number of love tales in current periodicals. When well done under certain restrictions of length and development a narrative of this kind rises to the class of the artistic short-story.
Pastoral Romance—Aucassin and Nicolette, translated by Andrew Lang (Chiswick Series); Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus, and Achilles Tatius (Bohn); Cervantes' Galatea is a typical example. It is published in English translation in Bohn's Libraries. Montemayor's Diana is summarized rather fully in Dunlop II, pp. 365-376. For Sidney's pastoral see E. A. Baker's edition of the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Lodge's Rosalind (C. N. L.). For historical criticism of the type, see E. K. Chambers' English Pastorals (Warwick Library), W. W. Greg's Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, 1906, and J. B. Fletcher's The Pastoral (Types of English Literature, Houghton Mifflin & Co.).
The Humorous Story
As in the case of the society story, the best collections of humorous stories are the cheaper current magazines.
Fableaux—A. de Montaiglon et G. Raynaud, Receuil général et complet des fabliaux des XIIIe et XIVe siecles, Paris, 1872-88, 6 vols. See Dunlop, History of Fiction, vol. II, p. 23 et seqq.
Picaresque romances—Romances of Roguery, by F. W. Chandler, 2 vols., 1899, is the standard book of criticism of the type. For the picaresque romances themselves, see Petronius Arbiter's Satyricon, English translation (Bohn); Apuleius' Golden Ass, English translation (Bohn). English translations of Lazarillo de Tormes, by Roscoe, and Guzman d'Alfarache, by Brandy, can be obtained from Lemcke and Buechner (N. Y.). Gil Blas, 2 vols. (W. C.); Smollett's Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Ferdinand, Count Fathom, in works, edited by Saintsbury (London, 1895); Fielding's Jonathan Wild, in works, edited by Saintsbury (London, 1893); Thackeray's Barry Lyndon (Macmillan); E. W. Hornung's Amateur Cracksman (Tauchnitz) and Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman.
The Occasional Story
Christmas Stories from the French and Spanish, translated by Antoinette Ogden (McClurg, 1892). E. E. Hale's In His Name, and Christmas Stories (Library edition); Stockton's The Christmas Wreck (Scribners); Dickens' Christmas Books and Stories, 2 vols. (Houghton); Thackeray's Christmas Books (Macmillan). The source of the nineteenth century emphasis of Christmas festivities in English was Irving's Christmas Sketches. Unter dem Christbaum (Heath) contains five Christmas stories by Helene Stökl.